Precision Cuts Impossible in 1.7

Cuts in 1.7 are really annoying. First, you can't cut neatly in multiples of .05 anymore. For some reason, the system sees fit to use numbers like .049 and .099 instead of .05 and .10. This happens for all would-be multiples of .05 except for .25, .5, .55, and .75.

Secondly, you can't just type in a 3-decimal number and get an exact cut, anymore. The ability to do such precise cuts is crucial for cunstructing complex, seamless objects, and now, without that ability, such objects simply can't be made. What happens is the system ends up rounding to the nearest .005, which makes precision fitting impossible. As if that weren't bad enough, they're not even true .005's. Most times it's the nearest .004 or .009. The only numbers that will actually be allowes to end with a 5 in the third decimal are the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 13th, 14th, 18th, and 21st numbers in any sequence (sequence defined as clicking all the way through the up and down arrows on the editor). For example, if you start with a .025 begin cut and then go around the clock, you'll see that the first two numbers don't work (.025 becomes .024, and .075 becomes .074), but the third number, .125, is allowed. The foruth and fifth numbers don't work (.175 becomes .174, .225 becomes .224), but the sixth number, .275, is allowed. The seventh number doesn't work (.325 becomes .324), but the eighth number, .375 is allowed. Etc, etc, etc. You'll find that this pattern holds up for every single 3-decimal sequence.

I haven't yet checked to see if any of my precision-fit items are now broken, but it's impossible to imagine that they aren't. The really sad part is that anything that is broken will have to be manually repaired or remain forever damaged because even if and when LL fixes this bug, the numbers that are currently in place for each prim will undoubtedly be the numbers they retain until manually changed by us.

Actually, It seems that precision anything is currently a little borked!

I have hexagonal floors at the Mall (See sig) that are made with preceision measures coupled with precision placement. One hexagon is a tedious matter, but once you have one, you should just be able to shift-Drag a new one, right?

Wrong.

The new one's 3 segments are all screwy on the Z-Axis by .004 m one direction or the other. This leaves very visible slashes in the floor where the edges catch the light. (No, I am not using shiny, and this is not overlap shimmer either. When the sun sets, the light changes differently for different faces...

Not exactly the same thing, but I noticed pre 1.7 that the two different torus cuts allowed different levels of precision on each. Cuts have always been a little finickity for me, unless I stick to twentieths of a full revolution. I haven't checked if things have changed post 1.7.

Here's a little inaccuracy I just noticed, though I'm not sure if this came about with the new patch.

In this attached pic I have a flattened torus with adv. cut 45/80 and the small block running through it is at 0/0/0 rotation. You can see that the cut on the lower side is like .01 off of what it should be. While this doesnt seem like a whole lot, this is huge when trying to line something up with it seemlessly. For the longest time I just thought I was making a bad measurement somewhere. I guess this wouldn't be all that bad if I had the precision to fix it, but currently, we dont.

Edit: Actually the attached pic is a tube, but this occurs with a torus as well

Ahh it's a problem that SL has had forever, and is the same problem as drift.

The database uses different levels of accuracy in different storage areas, causing calculations to occur that alter measurements on a tiny scale, leading to eventual larger changes.

I don't believe this is a problem that has existed forever. Two weeks ago, I cut a prim at 0.45 and 0.55 for instance. As of early Thursday morning - Eastern Time - I edited that prim and could NOT get the cut to return to that 0.45 begin cut. In fact, only the begin cut seemed to fail at retaining precise typed-in cuts. The typed cut seemed to round down 0.01%. Also, only the begin cut failed to 'tick up' properly. Instead of 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, 0.20, 0.25, etc... it ticked something like 0.04, 0.09, and further uneven numbers (though I believe 0.25 locked-in).

Anyway, I've used several cut prims and I can tell they aren't working the same as they had in the past. Also, one fix last week was for textures appearing on the wrong side of cut/hollowed prims. I didn't notice the issue with begin cuts until after that fix had been released.

Nevertheless, I filed a bug report on the issue Thursday morning. And refrained from editing any other cut objects. (I remember the cut/hollowed texture fix warned us not to repair the 'damage' caused by the bug because it had been repaired by the fix.)

Morning all,

I'm glad to see I was not going nuts when my Memorial Gardens hut suddenly had a cockeyed door upon first login, post-1.7. Spent *forever* trying to fix it and eventually locked it pending a remake.

For the record my experience matches that of Chosen. (Almost mirroring it, in my case using two 10m cylinders cut for the wall and door.)

Unfortunately I'm unable to file a bug report as both the original was already borked upon the sim restart, and did not have a copy in inventory (was the beginning of a work in progress and could probably remake in about 10 mins anyway).

Ah well, so far this is my only issue with 1.7 (currently), though I'm still doing the 'infrequent login' thing due to RL.

Have fun,

im having cutting issues too, its really fuxxoring my demand for perfection. they always go .001 off, usualy you just have to enter it in a few times to get it to work, still annoying though.

At the risk of saying "me, too," well, "me, too." I experienced precisely the behavior Chosen describes when I was working on a house last Sunday (31 October), and I'd never seen this kind of behavior when cutting prims prior to 1.7.

Yeah.. suffice it to say I've also experienced that problem. Was working on a convention centre for someone in Berkshire when I found that out, it refused to allow me to change the cut from .349 to .35.. I know it's small but it annoys me to NO end for osmeone who wants things precise.

(say that three times fast)

I've been trying to make tentacular forms using truncated tapered toruses and BOY is it hard to position those beggers precisely. Not only that, but they seem to move a millimeter or so when you attach and detach them, or when you link and unlink them, so you get these little bright or dark rings where the toruses butt together.

Anyone have any good hints (or building scripts) that can help solve this problem?

These tentacular shapes..
Are they biological in nature?

Are you sure a twisted cone would not suffice, as they are (marginally) easier to align?

If it simply MUST be a Truncated Tapered Torus, try titanizing the task to terminate travail.

Seriously, if you make it really really large to start with, and then shrink it down to the size you actually need, a lot of your problems become minimized. When the item is yuuge, you can adjust the edges to within tiny amounts of close to each other. Then when you shrink the items, that tiny becomes miniscule.

Of course if you are going to subject your work to a microscope that no-one else is going to use, you will never be satisfied. That part, I can't help you with, as I struggle with it myself. Nonetheless, you can still make something that will pass as spectacular, if not perfect.

ME TOO!

I was attempting to make a precision cut cube at 0.627, but it kept changing it back to 0.625. It doesn't seem to be the same as packet loss "wobbles", because I had set it correctly then came back later to find that it had changed back to 0.625.

Very frustrating!!

Oh and while I"m complaining... SOMEBODY FIX THE CROOKED SHINY PROBLEM.

Me too And what's with this all of a sudden .49 or whatever instead of .5 on things?

I feel sorry for anyone trying to learn to be a builder now. It was full of bugs when I started, but now we have those bugs PLUS these.

One day it will all reach my threshold of patience.

coco

P.S. I had heard a similar explanation of prim drift before, but the explanation above, about the data bases being different, makes it even easier to grasp.

Question: Why on earth did they do these data bases with different levels of accuracy in the first place? It's like they gave us three decimal places, but the last one doesn't really count. (And some things have only two.)

Why didn't they make it consistent in the first place? Is it some sort of mathmetical consideration that would rule out such consistency?

I spoke to Cory about this - the differing levels of precision you can get on different cuts. What is happening is that the system is set up to transmit the data around with less bits assigned to some cuts/scales/etc. than others. When the box looks like it can do 3 decimal places, the number of bits assigned to that variable is somewhat less.

Why do they vary in how many bits is assigned? Presumably some features are less used than others, and so some choices were made in which lost out, in order to keep the total info sent below some limit.

This was all pre 1.7. I don't know what's changed in 1.7, but something seems to have done. It might just be the client side stuff though - what it shows you in the numbers box. I haven't noticed a difference in what I can actually do, although I haven't done much experimentation.

OK. I don't see how it could possibly be "on the client side," though.

My "client" hasn't changed any.

And yes, this new numbers thing (not the prim drift), is new with 1.7. Along with a lot of other new pains in the butt.

coco

What do you think that great big download and all those updates were?
That was the client software.

You Dled version 1.7.
Then it was patched.

That is the Client Side.

If their client software is amking more strnuous demands from your machine, that is still a client side issue...

If your I-net bandwidth is no longer able to carry al the traffic that is generated by the new client software, that is still considered client-side.

Unfortunately, there is not a simple handbook out there explaining this kind of stuff to the layperson.

Your "Client" DID change. You just didn't know that's what it was doing when it did it.

If an Unearthly Biology of Non-Euclidean Angles and Computations that Drive Men Insane* counts.Interesting, I take it you mean a twisted and sliced cone? Wouldn't the cross-section of the pieces be pie-slice shaped rather than circular or elliptical then? I can see how that would be easier for sections that have rectilinear alignment, but I'm trying to avoid the mechanical look you get from that (not to mention that no hot-ichored eldritch monster would be satisfied with tentacles of conventional geometry), but I'll play with it.I'll try that, at least for the initial layout. I'll have to reposition stuff at 1:1 scale eventually when I go to size and fit the tentacles, though, and that's when the slight alignment shifts seem to be happening...

* Computations that Drive Strong Men Insane seems to be the norm on SL, now that I think about it, so I'm pretty well covered there...

Regarding the sliced, twisted cone, if you make it a Sliced Twisted HOLLOWED cone, you will get much better results. If you have any ability with texturing (Something I am woefully short on in this arena...(Damn you Targa! Damn you to HELL!)) you can prebake the shadows to make it appear more rounded, even though the cross section is squarish...


Also, the smaller your slice-difference and the larger your hollow value, the closer you can get to an actual square...but the geometry is still messed up. The big advantage of using the sliced twisted hollow cone, though, is that it is not as hard on the sim as a torus or ring. No...It does not make sense...but it is true... If the object is expected to move, I strongly recommend using a cone instead of a torus... your lag will be less; your headaches will be less; and you are less likely to "temporarily" lose bits of your creation as it moves about. If it is a static sculpture, however, then I understand the desire to use something more "PI" related...

ALso remember to utilize "PHI" in your proportions if you want to make it look like something alive. Although there is no reason to believe that PHI is necessarily the proportion of Eldritch biology, human beings have to relate to your thing as alive, and that proportion seems to trigger the most archetypal response of "It's Alive, or at least organic". I use it a lot in my sculptures, and people often remark about the "Organicy-ness" (not my word) of my stuff... Also, if you are creating a space around that theme, you may find some of my stuff to be appropriate. Ophidian Artisans Studio - Skyline Mall - See my sig - go take a look at what I mean.

I am also interested in seeing your stuff. Us Techno-organic and Organic sculptors have to stick together. There's not enough of us, I think.

Is that true even if it's an attachment on an avatar, since that's non-physical and doesn't even really exist in the sim itself?

Yes, I'm familiar with the golden section. I actually started down this path towards madness trying to build a credible archimedean spiral.

I'm almost ready to just write a script that drives a builder along a random walk and drops ellipsoids, and to hell with the number of prims it takes. Since it's an attachment they shouldn't count against the sim limits.

PS: I'm not exactly a sculptor, I just suffer from multiple body disorder and avatar-of-the-day syndrome.

As a shapeshifter myself, I feel your pain.
If you show me your Eldritch, I will show you my Illithid.
Also, check out the Gallery anyway... you may find something to your liking if your tastes run to the "Cthulhuesque".
Check out the Vehicle Shop on the First floor too, though most of my stock is currently removed for upgrading. I am tightening up the scripts and attaching a HUD for the Nav and Flight info on the more complex craft. The "Basic Flight" vehicles, however, are still there just to keep a market presence. (Funny, 1.7 didn't bork any of the old Linden Original scripts. )


And even though the primcount in attachments doesn't count against the land limit in a sim, they DO contribute to lag. Also, the more complex the prim, the longer it takes to rez when you transfer from one sim to another... especially at peak hours.
Yes the torus counts... Especially as an attachment.
It gets seen a lot with really complex prim hair...
Ever seen someone TP in with half a wig scattered over their head, only to have the other half rez in in pieces...a little at a time over the next minutes? Toroids or rings. I run events periodically and see it on a fairly consistent if not frequent basis... we are not talking grey ghosting (that's a texture issue and applies to every instance of that texture at the same time). We are talking like the wearer has Allopecia or Trichotillomania; whole prims are missing from the hairset and the bald scalp shows through.

It's especially noticeable in vehicles... Crossing sim borders, sometimes the arms of my aircraft would disappear, and reappear later. Also, while I was waiting for them to reappear, the ship would drop from the sky like a rock. It took longer for these items that were part of the object to transfer and rez... Since I switched to cones, it is uncommon to actually hit the ground when I drop... and since 1.7, I rarely drop anymore at all (though time dilation has created some other problems with flying vehicles that have more complex scripts <sigh>.

Back to the origin of the thread: Precision Cuts Impossible in 1.7

Anyone know if the latest update has repaired this bug? I won't be in-world for a few more hours, but my inquiring mind needs to know.

I'm thinking not. I believe I was seeing some of this earlier tonight. But I could be wrong, as I wasn't looking for it specifically.

LOL Why would they let their servers do that? Do the lindens know about it? Sorry I don't have time to do homework on other posts to see if they know or not. lol.

But I hope this is why they keep doing updates about server communication problems. Thou I think most of that was inventory issues.

Well anyway, thats gunna bug me. I'm picky on things like that.

bump, because this really is a huge problem